Crotalus Aquilus

 

The thing in my hair was not there

when I was a child--

only the breeze.

You cannot pet it, it will only

hunker down, hiding.

I am never lonely, but long to be.

Sometimes it slithers down my arms

to my fingers

and lays eggs inside.

(They turn to stone,

change flesh to bone.)

In my belly, its basket swells

with the things it saves--

a crowded hell.

"Look at the fat old lady, dropping things!"

the children call.

The thing in my hair bites their ball.

At night the thing whispers, nips,

draws blood and memories,

worries, fits.

(At dawn it dies and sleeps

wrapped like a hobble around my feet.)

Play a flute and see it risen as a Christ

undulating, swaying

in a mockery of praying

Above my head, a permanent rotten halo

unasked-for, inevitable,

whispering, "You are beautiful,

(Senora, like the setting sun,

mi viejo.")

___________

for The Sunday Muse #177

mi viejo = "my old one"

Crotalus Aquilus = Queretaro dusky rattlesnake, a venomous pit viper found at high altitude in Mexico.